


The Vault Room

by kumatt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, M/M, Shiro keeps to himself, Toronto, Worldbuilding, fiery Keith, indulgent worldbuilding, why not set it in Toronto?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25109368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kumatt/pseuds/kumatt
Summary: The Pact bound the Humans, Alteans and Galra into an uneasy truce long ago. You Humans inherited the Earth as you know it, but magic is denied you. And for those few of you who are born with magic, The Pact is a sword, hanging over your heads. If the Pact ever breaks, you'll be free, but so will the Galra, and it will be the end of us all.Our end has been foretold, but so has our salvation.
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	The Vault Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > “Okay,” said Iverson with an appraising scowl. “You work your lead. I’ll find someone else for my three. Because I like you so much.”
>> 
>> Shiro let the stress out of his shoulders as Iverson marched back out of the office. He turned back to the blank page of his notepad. He knew he should be writing down some notes about the encounter. That kid had the knack, but there was something else…
>> 
>> The blank page stared at him expectantly. When he brought pencil to paper what came out was a sketch. His pencil outlined the long unkempt hair, the upright collar of the jacket, and the eyes he couldn’t get out of his head.
>> 
>> Shiro told himself he was making the sketch so his fellow field agents could identify the kid, but when he was done for the day he slipped the notebook into his bag and brought it home.
> 
> Magic exists in the world you know, but the survival of its practitioners depends on you never finding out. Shiro, like any magician living in a city, has to keep a low profile, but there's something about this kid that he can't get out of his head, and it's going to get him in trouble. 

Shiro rounded the end of the cereal aisle and checked his list. Eggs? Check. Milk? Check. Bread? _Right._

The woman with the greying hair smiled from behind the bakery counter as Shiro approached. She only worked weekends. She didn’t seem tired from holding down two jobs and she looked like the comfortable sort of older person who knows they can retire. She was there because she liked baking. And people. Must be nice.

Shiro smiled back as best he could and tossed a loaf of something into his basket. Time to leave.

A stock boy walked by with a dolly stacked with boxes of radishes, nearly platonic in their fussy, hand-selected radishness. That kid’s here every day. Probably won’t be here by fall. He’s got the spring in his step of someone who thinks he earned his football scholarship.

Past the produce section, two loudmouths expressed opinions to each other on the merits of aged cheese. Shiro doesn’t have gaydar per se, but he recognized the way the one loudmouth talked a little too eagerly to the other loudmouth. _Good luck, buddy, thought Shiro. Cheers to you and me and all the other lost causes._

Shiro glanced up at the bored cashier as the sliding glass doors parted and someone walked in.

_Don’t stare,_ Shiro scolded himself, but a habit like that is hard to shake, especially when the subject is… interesting.

Long shaggy hair. Scuffed up red leather jacket. The kid looked like he might be homeless, but he walked around like he owned the place.

Shiro watched, baffled as the kid pocketed a handful of candy bars, a couple pre-made sandwiches and a can of Coke before turning and leaving.

The cashier didn’t seem to notice. The stock boy didn’t look up from his vegetables.

The doors whooshed shut and nobody seemed to pay the slightest mind. Nobody but Shiro. He rubbed the scar at the bridge of his nose out of habit.

“Uh, sir, cash or card?” asked the cashier, not bothering to hide their fatigue.

“What?” asked Shiro, dragging his eyes away from the sliding doors. “Uh. Nevermind. Thank you.”

Shiro left the groceries, forgotten, on the checkout conveyor and strode out into the damp spring air.

He nearly ran to the end of the block, eyes adjusting to the diffuse overcast brightness of mid-afternoon, sidestepping or stumbling around the perpetually huffy denizens of the posh Yorkville neighbourhood. He worried he'd lost the kid when he turned the corner and nearly ran straight into him.

The kid stood against the wall of the building, looking almost relaxed, working his way through a fancy ham sandwich. He looked at Shiro and Shiro looked at him. The kid did a double-take.

“No,” said the kid. “You can’t see me.”

Shiro shook his head, confused.

“Yes... I can.”

The kid started to trace a figure with his finger on the palm of his hand.

“No, wait!” said Shiro.

“You _can’t_ see me!” said the kid emphatically, and clapped his hands together. A fiery flash blinded Shiro before he could cover his eyes. When the afterimage faded, the kid was gone.

Shiro walked briskly through Yorkville, and then down bustling, seedy Yonge street, looking down every alley and in every shop window. He glanced through the crowds at Dundas Square, hoping to catch another glimpse of the kid. It drizzled on and off. Shiro kept going. He had no idea if he was even walking in the right direction, but on the other hand, in the leafless grey of early Toronto spring, one red jacket should have been easy to spot.

Shiro began to wander, losing speed as it became clear he’d lost his quarry. He heard the roar of a greyhound bus and realized he’d walked all the way to work. He walked around to the side of the bus depot and shouldered open the old steel and glass door that led upstairs. He walked past the familiar, perpetually closed locksmith, the shuttered drycleaner, and the other abandoned businesses of the sad office complex. The floor rumbled as a bus pulled into one of the bays below.

The offices of The Guild were quiet when he got in. His fellow field agents were out exploring their leads and Iverson was nowhere to be seen. He hung his jacket on the hook in his tiny office, sat down at his weathered oak desk and pulled out his notebook.

“Shiro,” said a familiar voice. Iverson. “You’re off today.”

Shiro shrugged and tried not to tense up. Iverson stood in the doorway. An older man with greying hair so consistently irate that his whole body gave of waves of it, starting from his jaw.

“Shall I take this new enthusiasm to mean you’re finally ready to take on some kids? I’ve got three fresh idiots who could use your help.”

“What? Kids?” asked Shiro, trying to keep his cool. “No. Thank you.”

“There’s going to come a day when I won’t take no for an answer.”

“I know.”

“What if that day is today, Shiro?”

“Hold on!” said Shiro. “I’ve got a lead on another kid.”

Iverson’s eyebrows went up and he leaned on Shiro’s desk. His expressive, generally sour face, slumped in skepticism. 

“Oh?”

“Yes,” said Shiro. “Right here in town. Sighted just today.”

“By you?” asked Iverson. Shiro nodded. “Really? You’re not exactly Mr. Man About Town, you know. What, was he delivering your take-out?”

“I go out, Iverson. I buy groceries,” said Shiro, crossing his arms. “This kid has it, okay? I just need to track him down.”

“Okay,” said Iverson with an appraising scowl. “You work your lead. I’ll find someone else for my three. Because I like you so much.”

Shiro let the stress out of his shoulders as Iverson marched back out of the office. He turned back to the blank page of his notepad. He knew he should be writing down some notes about the encounter. That kid had the knack, but there was something else…

The blank page stared at him expectantly. When he brought pencil to paper what came out was a sketch. His pencil outlined the long unkempt hair, the upright collar of the jacket, and the eyes he couldn’t get out of his head.

Shiro told himself he was making the sketch so his fellow field agents could identify the kid, but when he was done for the day he slipped the notebook into his bag and brought it home.

Back in his bland apartment, the notebook stared up at Shiro from his open bag. He flopped into his frayed recliner and flipped it open. It was the kid’s eyes that drew his attention. Those pencil sketched eyes, angry, arrogant, vulnerable and scared.

“Snap out of it,” said Shiro to himself. “Ah dammit.” The _groceries_. Shiro could picture them sitting forgotten in the office fridge. He dined on leftover soup and tried to distract himself with some paperwork for the rest of the evening.

* * *

Shiro spent the next day, planted at his desk in his dingy office, working through his backlog of case files. Reams of news clippings that needed to be categorized. “Probable coincidence”, “continue to monitor”, and “highly suspicious”. Each fragment of newsprint a thread that might lead to another hapless child. Some kid out there using their knack and getting themselves into trouble. Or it could be plain old nothing. Their office could only investigate so many cases. Fewer and fewer, as their ranks thinned. Everyone likes the idea of working in the field until they actually get there. Skulking around the back alleys of a city that wants to erase you just isn’t as nice as getting out to a knacker stronghold and living free.

Despite his best efforts, his mind kept wandering back to the kid from yesterday. He kept catching himself reaching for his notebook, about to open it up to study his sketch. _He’s just one of many,_ Shiro told himself.

His week continued uneventfully. He caught a glimpse of the three kids standing sheepishly in Iverson’s office and Iverson, already red in the face over something they’d done.

Glad they’re not my problem, he thought.

Every day on his way in Shiro found himself searching the crowds for flashes of red jacket. Every mop of long black hair caught his eye. Then a note came across his case files about suspicious activity in a cellar near his grocery store, and it tickled his fingers as they brushed the edge of the page.

“It’s him,” said Shiro, feeling for the truth with his knack. The magic prickling through him in subtle affirmation. Shiro spent the rest of the afternoon trying not to bounce his knees under his desk.

_It’s my neighbourhood,_ Shiro told himself. He walked home in the fading evening light.. _I should check it out myself. I can always report it afterwards._

It began to drizzle as Shiro turned down the back alley. It ran behind an aspiring but unimpressive commercial strip just past Shiro’s usual haunts. Nothing about it seemed especially suspicious.

* * *

Shiro stood in a doorway while freezing rain came down in sheets, feeling like an idiot. _Who do you think you are, Dick Tracey? At least he’d have had the sense to wear a hat._

It was the same innocuous laneway as before, except it was late, and dark, and the regular cones of light from the streetlights had an obvious gap that happened to mark the exact location of the steel door he had come to investigate.

Shiro flipped up his collar and stepped out of the doorway he’d been sheltering in and felt a wave of embarrassment.

_I’m six foot two and I’ve got black and white hair,_ he thought, running his hand reflexively through the shock of white, trying for the millionth time to smooth it back. It stood up in stubborn soggy tufts. _Welp, let’s get this over with._

Shiro banged on the door and wondered belatedly how he would get in, but as soon as he knocked, the door opened inward, and a vigorously uncommunicative refrigerator of a man waved him in.

The door opened onto a dingy flight of cement stairs leading into a dingier basement. Shiro counted the steps as he descended. Fifteen steps. But the basement ceiling wasn’t that high. _This place is a bunker._

It was dark and filled with the murmuring of a large, quiet crowd. He could barely make them out in the gloom, but he felt their eyes on him. He felt his right arm tense and he flexed his fingers, willing himself to stay calm.

_Figure out what is up here and then get the hell out._

“Are you going to bet or not?” Shiro realized that a wall near the foot of the stairs had an opening. A pair of eyes and a glowing stump of cigarette lurked inside.

Shiro scanned the crowd as he fished cash out of his pocket, looking for any clue to tell him what he was getting into, and also for any alternate exits.

“Uh, what are my options?”

“Tonight it’s the Red Viper against the Sledgehammer.”

_It’s him._ Shiro felt his stomach knot. “Uh, Viper,” he said, pushing what cash he had onto the counter.

“Okay, big spender. Good luck,” said the figure, flipping through Shiro’s bills with mock admiration. He shoved a paper slip Shiro’s way and stepped back into the darkness behind the opening.

A spotlight flashed on across the low, wide basement, illuminating a raised, roped-off square.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed a voice over a speaker. “Your evening’s entertainment is about to begin.”

Shiro squirmed. _What the hell am I betting on?_ he asked himself, worrying that he already knew. The kid was here, Shiro was certain. He was going to be up there. But this had every sign of being a seedy underground fight club, and nothing to do with magic. Just a great way to get your legs broke.

“A new challenger for you all tonight, coming to you from a brief stint in Belarus, and a longer stint upstate before that, The Sledgehammer!”

The crowd, which up to then had been almost eerily silent, jeered and yelled. A figure stepped into the light. An imposing man with a patchy beard and buzzed hair. He wore more clothes than Shiro expected for an underground fighter. A pair of ratty jeans and a tattered loose-fitting sweater. He sneered at the crowd and bared a set of grisly teeth.

"And of course, ladies and gentlemen, back again for your enjoyment, let's hear it for the Red Viper!"

Even knowing all along it would be him, a wave of worry washed over him as the kid slipped between the ropes into the ring. The kid seemed completely at ease. He glanced idly at the audience and flipped them off. The audience roared.

“Shit,” said Shiro under his breath.

The crowd continued to cheer and jeer as the two faced off. An older man with slicked back grey hair who must have been the referee held up a hand from outside the ring.

"Ready? Fight!"

The Sledgehammer acted first. To Shiro's horror, he drew an actual hammer from a pocket in his sweater. Shiro swore and tensed himself, ready to spring forward and intervene. Shiro’d spent enough time fending for himself with his bare hands and felt ready for whatever came next. Only he wasn't.

The Sledgehammer drew his swinging arm back and then brought it down. Not on the kid, or anything else, but on empty space, right in mid-air. And the empty space shattered. It rang out through the cramped room and made Shiro flinch.

The Sledgehammer drew his other hand across the space of shattered air and gathered something up. Fragments of something from the nothing of open air. He made a gesture with his fist full of nothing and threw it at the kid. The shards of nothing flickered like bits of broken glass as they flew. The kid bounced out of the way on the balls of his toes. And the nothing faded to nothing as it cleared the ring.

_Fucking magic!_ Shiro’s mind reeled. _This is insane. A fighting ring for knackers?_

He looked around, trying to make out the faces of the crowd in the wash of light from the ring. Could they all be knackers too? How could they not be? If a normal saw this, it’d be curtains for both fighters. _What the fuck is going on?_

The noise of the crowd surged and Shiro turned back to the stage.

The Sledgehammer was readying another hammer blow when the kid drew back his own hands and spit something from his mouth. Something that was words but also napalm. It washed out over the man with the hammer, and he screamed. Shiro’s eyes went wide with terror, but the fire burned itself away almost immediately. The Sledgehammer seemed unburned, but he looked weaker. Powerless in a way that seemed decisive to the referee and the crowd. The match was over as quickly as it had begun.

Shiro started pushing through to the edge of the ring, but by the time he was close the kid had already ducked off through the other side, grabbing a grubby envelope from a balding man with a thick black goatee and disappearing through a doorway.

The crowd meanwhile, seemed restless.

“That’s how it goes, folks! You mess with the Viper, you get bit,” said the voice over the loudspeaker.

Complaints, demands and threats began to spread through the crowd as money reluctantly changed hands around Shiro. The sounds of a more mundane fight reached him from across the room and he decided it was time to be somewhere else. The kid was probably long gone, and the best he could hope for if he stayed any longer was trouble.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder just as he was about to take the stairs. He stiffened.

“Calm down, big spender. Here’s your winnings.”

Shiro grabbed the cash and hustled up the stairs. The rain was mostly spent when he got out into the open air. Only a fine drizzle accompanied him on his walk home. He got all the way into his apartment before he realized he still had the wad of bills clenched in his hand. He flicked the bills onto the kitchen counter and steadied himself against it. He took one deep breath and then another, and eventually he made himself shuffle over and collapse onto his sofa. The impossibilities of what he’d seen whirled in his mind.

The first rays of morning forced Shiro’s eyes open. He must have fallen asleep on the sofa. With a groan he pulled himself up and started himself into motion.

The day came at him as if through a haze. He was late arriving at the Guild offices, catching more flak from Iverson. Planted at his desk, he couldn’t focus on his case work. After taking a long walk around the charming surrounds of the bus terminal, Shiro came back and excused himself with a report of stomach pain, which wasn’t even untrue.

_What the fuck is happening? What is that kid caught up in? Why am I not telling Iverson?_

Shiro paced around his apartment.

_Because there’s every chance Iverson and friends will ban the lot of them from all the enclaves. The kid will be stuck on the outside._

Shiro found himself back at his kitchen counter with his notebook open.

_You’re going to get yourself killed._

The thought rang through his head, and he knew it was as true for him as it was for the kid.

Shiro grabbed his coat and went back out. The library was probably still open and he needed answers.

* * *

Shiro sat down at the community access computer and frowned.

_Just behave,_ he thought at the computer, as sternly as he could, knowing it was already plotting to betray him.

_Can’t be helped,_ Shiro said to himself. _This mess might involve normals and they love to put all their secrets on computers. And in any case, the place with the steel door and the bunker has to belong to somebody._

People with the knack usually have to make do without computers, but usually there are some alternatives. The Guild office has its own baroque collection of phone books, card catalogues, and microfiche. No problem, unless you don’t want to attract the attention of your office.

_Let’s just start with getting the address. That should be easy._

Shiro pecked hesitantly at the keys and managed to get a city map up. The screen blinked and flickered as Shiro zoomed in on the alleyway, and Shiro started to hurry. Zoom. Switch to satellite. _Where is it?_ Switch to 3D. The colours of the display began to bleed and flicker. The hard drive started to mutter to itself. _Come on..._ Shiro pulled the virtual camera around and scanned along the view displaying the backs of the shops. And right where the door was, it wasn’t.

_Oh…_ and before the thought could finish, the screen blinked off and a definitive popping sound emanated from within the PC case.

Shiro stood as calmly as he could and walked with measured, even steps towards the exit.

“Holy shit, is that computer on fire?” cried some concerned patron behind him.

Shiro cringed as he pushed the glass library doors open and whispered “sorry” under his breath.

It was clear and bright and cold outside and Shiro felt exposed. He did up his coat and hunched his shoulders. He walked the familiar route through Yorkville that he would have taken to get home, and made himself take the turn down the back alley. _Just to be sure,_ he told himself.

Where there had been a door, there was only a plain stretch of cinder block wall. The weathered wall, covered in faded, striping paint seemed to prove that no door could ever have been there to begin with.

_For the whole door and wall to just be gone… It can’t just be some knacker. It has to be an artefact._

Most artefacts came in the form of jewels, pendants, and other nicknacks from antiquity. They did not usually come in the form of modern steel security doors. Still, he knew a couple artefact experts who owed him a favour.

* * *

Shiro wandered into Holt Antiques late in the afternoon. The shop had once been a house, and then industrious people had put a storefront on the front of it. The Holt family had evidently needed as much space as they could find. Individual rooms blended into one long labyrinthine space, the double-doors between the rooms pinned open and buried behind bookcases and cabinets. Shiro made a project of trying to find at least one new marvel every time he visited, and the sheer density of collected bric a brac had never let him down. 

Shiro wondered again at the audacity of Samuel and Colleen Holt. To make the cover for their operation warehousing priceless magical relics an antiques shop… but then, on the other hand, where else to hide but in plain sight. In this room full of old door knobs, warped stained glass, and unreliable furniture, were a handful of truly ancient objects. Actual artefacts. Magical Altean objects from before the Pact.

A grey-haired man in spectacles poked his head out around the curtain to the back and interrupted Shiro’s thought.

“Shiro,” said the man. “Come in! We’ve got some new stuff in that you should see! I have no idea what any of it is for!”

“Hey, Sam! Tempting!” said Shiro with a smile and a warm embrace. “Maybe later. Right now I need your help.”

Sam took an appraising look at Shiro over his glasses.

“What’s up, Shiro?”

“Let me show you. Get your coat. And bring your tools.”

They arrived at the alleyway in the orange light of sunset. Shiro showed Sam to the unremarkable cement wall.

“Ah, I see. What you have here Shiro is a wall.”

“Thanks, Sam. The problem is sometimes there’s a door here.”

“That doesn’t sound likely. You’d probably need an artefact to pull off something like that.”

“And then I’d need a genius in artefact identification. I wish I knew one. Or two.”

“All right, all right. Let me have a look.”

Sam drew a device out of his pocket. Something like a cross between a sextant and a slide rule. He slid some levers along its fine metal guides and studied the wall through a lens.

He looked at the wall and then again at some indicator on his tool. He turned on his heel and faced Shiro.

“We should leave right now.”

He stuffed his gadget in his bag and started striding out of the alley.

“Okay, great,” said Shiro, trailing behind. “Why?”

Sam waited until they’d cleared the alley and were down the next block.

“You were right. It’s an artefact.” Sam lowered his glasses. “A Galra artefact. And it’s new.”

“Shit.”

“Shit is right. Unless I’m wrong, this means that not only are there still Galra on this plane, they’re here in town.”

“Okay. You-” Shiro trailed off. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of that familiar red jacket in the fading twilight. He turned in time to see the familiar mop of black hair turn down the alley they’d just left. He raced back in time to see him entering the door that hadn’t been there.

“You know him?”

“I uh… No. But I know he’s in over his head.”

“You’re going to have to tell me the rest of this story, Shiro, but not right now.”

“Right. You go back to the Guild and tell Iverson. We need backup.”

“And what, you’re going in there all by your lonesome?”

“That’s right,” said Shiro, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Are you going to waste time trying to talk some sense into me?”

“It’s tempting,” said Sam. “But we both know that could take days.”

Shiro smiled. Sam nodded and left at a run. 

Streetlights started to flicker on. Shiro set out down the alley.

“Good sense is overrated,” he told himself and knocked on the door. It swung open and he stepped inside.

“Welcome back, big spender!” said the figure at the bottom of the stairs.

Shiro scanned the room again. No sign of the kid.

“Your bet?”

“Um. No bet. I’m here to compete.”

The figure leaned out of their window and squinted at Shiro.

Shiro leaned forward as well. “Vrepit Sa,” he whispered. 

The cigarette dropped out of the bookie’s mouth and he took a moment to regain his composure.

“That’s a nice party trick.”

“Wait ‘til you see what I’ve got up my sleeve,” said Shiro, holding up his right hand theatrically.

The man raised an eyebrow and suddenly became bored. “All right. We’re short tonight. You’ll fight Terry.”

“Great. That’s Red Viper, right?”

“Ha. Why does everybody want to get their ass beat by that kid so bad? No, let’s see how you do with Bonebreaker Terry first, and go from there... based on how dead you are or ain’t, okay?”

* * *

Shiro paced back and forth behind the tattered curtain at the far end of the basement. It took an eternity for the crowd to fill out. Too much time for Shiro to spend with his thoughts.

“Great plan,” he said to himself. “Great, great, great.”

The referee poked around the curtain. “What’s your handle?”

“They used to call me ‘Champion’,” said Shiro softly.

“Pft. Yeah, right,” said the man, disappearing back behind the curtain. “Alright everybody. Starting off your night tonight, we bring you a new face… Big Spender!”

Shiro pulled the curtain back and hesitantly stepped up into the ring. It was bright and the crowd was barely visible. They responded with scattered applause and one modest “Woo!” He could already feel the threat of tunnel vision closing in and forced himself to focus on the ring.

“And his opponent, ladies and gentlemen, Bonebreaker!”

The crowd more moaned than cheered. Was that sympathy?

The figure that stepped forward didn’t strike an imposing figure, but Shiro felt a chill as he watched the man. Now that he knew he’d be dealing with magic, he ignored the man’s short stature and substantial paunch. He saw the way he walked, the way he carried his shoulders and moved his hands. _He’s using Black Magic,_ thought Shiro. _Like me._

“Ready? Fight!” Shiro heard the words from somewhere far away, watching the man draw two slender sticks from his pockets and wave them through a pattern while he muttered words under his breath.

Shiro felt his joints begin to seize. _Ah, so this the bone breaking. Too bad._

“My bones are beyond breaking,” said Shiro, drawing his hands through the familiar arcane vocabulary. And in saying it, he knew it to be true. For that fight, for that opponent. It showed in Terry’s eyes that he knew it too.

Terry took a step back and seemed to look Shiro up and down. He lowered his stance and began tracing swooping, elaborate shapes with the tips of his sticks. He spoke rapidly, to himself, in one long, unbroken stream of obscure commandments.

Shiro glanced away and looked at the audience. There, near the front was the familiar kid in red. He looked bored. A tightening in Shiro’s chest brought him back to the fight.

“Oh, Terry...” said Shiro. “You can’t kill me.”

He took two steps towards Terry that Terry had to match with three steps back. Shiro began spelling his meaning with his hands, signing the truth into the words he spoke.

“You can’t kill me and you don’t want to be here. Because every word I say makes you realize you know you don’t want to fight me.” Shiro’s hands continued to mark the truth. “With every word, you wish more and more that I didn’t even know your name. Terry.”

Terry fell to his knees. The sticks fell to the mat.

“How about that, everybody!” cried the voice of the speaker. “Let’s hear it for Big Spender!”

Shiro looked back to try and spot the kid as the referee slapped him on the back and hustled him out of the ring. No sign of him. He sat on his stool at the edge of the ring and took stock. He didn’t feel that spent, but any fight like this was dangerous and could be taxing in subtle ways.

“Hey, buddy. Ready to go again?” The ref gave him a quick look over. “Great!”

He was gone again before Shiro could answer.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for your next fight, back because he just can’t get enough, Big Spender!”

Shiro climbed back into the ring to confront the ref. He’d had enough bad ideas for one night.

“Listen, I’m-”

“And his opponent, Red Viper!”

Shiro looked across the ring. At last, the kid.

The ref leaned close as he walked out of the ring. “Sorry, buddy. Keith really wants to fight you, and the boss likes it when Keith wants to fight, so…Ready? Fight!”

“Keith,” said Shiro. “Your name is Keith and...”

Shiro felt for what was true, or was ready to be true, and tried to spell some of it out with his fingers.

“You know how to fight, but you’ve never fought someone like me. You…”

“Shut the fuck up,” said Keith, and suddenly he was in Shiro’s face. He smacked Shiro’s hands away, breaking the wording. “You don’t know shit about me.”

Shiro jumped back, shocked. “Okay, okay, but listen.”

“Stop following me!” shouted Keith, shifting his weight onto his rear leg and beginning to speak fire at Shiro.

The gout of flame spewed from Keith’s mouth. Shiro flicked his hand up and made a gesture, parting the flame and turning it to steam and smoke.

“I can help you,” said Shiro, quietly so only Keith could hear.

Keith took a couple experimental swings with open palms, waving broad licks of flame across the ring at Shiro. Shiro batted them away and Keith watched, stepping carefully now.

“You don’t belong here,” said Shiro with a simple gesture that helped him find that it was true. Already true. _Oh._ Keith’s eyes widened for just that moment. _Oh. That had always been true for a long time._

_Shit._

Keith paced back to his side of the ring, shaking out his arms, limbering up his joints. Faint blue flame began to flow over his skin, and sparks shook free from his fingers, bouncing on the canvas of the ring. Then he turned and was upon Shiro in one sudden motion, not with fire, but with his own flesh and blood. Fighting with his fists. Shiro blocked as best he could and was forced to retreat.

Keith fought intuitively. He’d learned how to fight for survival. He was vicious and relentless. Shiro hadn’t fought anyone hand to hand in a long time, and it was the last thing he was expecting. But he knew how to hold his own. He also had something Keith didn’t: training. Keith’s wide-eyed, desperate fighting should have been terrifying, but Shiro saw, as he parried, blocked, feinted, and counter-attacked, that this was the story of Keith. _This kid is absolutely alone. And he’s sure he always will be._

The crowd began to boo. They’d come to see a spectacle, and a sloppy street fight wasn’t cutting it.

“You don’t have to believe me,” said Shiro quietly, taking a blow to his flank as he tried to stay close enough to be heard. “I don’t know you. And I shouldn’t have followed you. I’m sorry.”

“Knack! Knack! Knack!” chanted the crowd.

“‘Sorry’?” scoffed Keith. “Not yet, you’re not.” He narrowly dodged Shiro’s jab and grabbed the front of Shiro’s jacket in his hands. The blue flame began to spread.

Shiro leaned in close. “If you come find me, I can teach you how to fight.”

Keith’s eyes widened in rage. Shiro stepped back, the flame dissipating. Keith tried to surge after him, and fell flat on his face.

Shiro finished a gesture with his hands. “I really am sorry. Your laces got tied together.” Shiro smiled innocently. “And I should have told you.”

The crowd roared and Keith glared.

“If you stay here, they’ll kill you,” Shiro whispered. “If you think about me, you’ll realize you already know where to find me.”

Keith sliced through his laces with a knife that was suddenly in his hands and he was off, bolting out of the ring, face red. Shiro watched him disappear into the crowd and started making his own exit before he got roped into any more excitement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all this magic AU nonsense is fun or at least mildly distracting! I've got more chapters in the queue. I just need to make them presentable. 
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful [Ember](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberGlows) for holding my hand and helping me get this beast off the ground!


End file.
